"Integrity is the essence of everything successful."--R. Buckminster Fuller

Yesterday a friend asked me how I manage to sell my artwork so quickly. I responded with a variety of reasons, but as I considered it more deeply, I realized that I had glossed over something important. Today I want to consider the concept of integrity with a two-pronged approach. The idea of sincerity and truthfulness are the first things that come to mind. This is an important aspect of integrity and pretty straightforward, if not always easy to achieve. The other branch on that word tree, however, is what really intrigues me when I think about how it impacts my art making--the concept of wholeness and cohesion.

I think a lot about art when I am making art, and well, pretty much when I am not. I make art because I absolutely must have something to focus on. It helps me deal with anxiety, depression, and frustration. In the past few years, I have developed a never ceasing case of tinnitus. Ringing in the ears. Ringing. It sounds so pleasant. Tinnitus is not pleasant. It is relentless and loathsome, and almost always incurable. And making art is about the only thing that helps me deal with it.

And even though that aspect of my life threatens to sometimes overrun everything else, making art is most important because it simply helps me to think clearly. To think, period. And this brings me back to the concept of integrity. In order for my art-making adventures to be satisfying, there must be some element of wholeness to it. While this is fairly clear in in my thinking, it is as difficult to explain as what tinnitus sounds and feels like. Ideas for making art come from everywhere. The thing that turns an idea into art, at least for me, is the way it bounces around in my head, negating or combining with other ideas, gathering momentum as it shifts from impetus to action.

I am reminded of a video game I used to love to play. I think it was called Katamari. Basically you start out small, in a variety of scenarios, and roll about acquiring stuff, making you grow larger and larger, until the things that stick to you grow from the size of paper clips to planets. This is a good metaphor for how it feels in my mind when an idea is becoming a piece of art. Almost everything that goes into my mind is fine-tuned by whys and what ifs. And that process never stops. It is not always pleasant, but sometimes it slows down or refines itself enough to become a concept for a piece of art.

I would become quite bored without this process. For example, suppose I decide to paint a tiger. Tigers are interesting and something about a tiger might settle in my thoughts until I am compelled to render one. But what is it that really draws me to draw it? The fierceness partly. A few years ago I decided to paint a tiger. At the time I was in the habit of covering my canvases with one inch dots cut from magazines. (More about that another time...) As I painted my tiger, I became bored. So what if I can paint a tiger? Then someone may come along and like tigers and they might want to buy my tiger. So what? Lots of people can paint tigers. And if my tiger turns out to be a great likeness of a tiger, someone will likely try to copy my style and paint a tiger very similar to mine.

But what else is similar to a tiger? What else can I do to this painting that will give it integrity? One day as I was taking a break from tiger painting, I was looking through magazines for tiger colors, thinking that collaging one inch dots to the surface would make it more interesting, and I noticed that in the fashion magazines I had collected for the purpose of dot cutting, almost every advertisement, at least on the surface, objectified women in some way. It occurred to me that I could cut my tiger dots from these ads, and use them as a subtle yet fierce rebuttal by way of my art. This recap of my process is, of course, much simplified. But the point is, instead of painting a tiger, I made a statement. And the dots, which at first glance enhanced the tiger painting, contained information, contradictory opinionated information and images, which worked together with my idea to take a stance against the need to objectify women to sell products to women.

Not long after I finished the tiger painting, a client bought it for her daughter who was leaving that week to go to college. She wanted to send it with her as she made her way in the world, to make a statement about what it means to be a woman making her way in the world. And that was another piece of the puzzle, a contributor to the wholeness of my project.

These are just a few thoughts as I start my day, and I know from past experience that this topic will impact my work today. These ideas that I rolled over and collected are now part of the core that is me that rolls about collecting both large and small, all destined to be fodder for art making. I will close today with these reflections on integrity:

​"Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary."--Cecil Beaton

​"Character contributes to beauty. It fortifies a woman as her youth fades. A mode of conduct, a standard of courage, discipline, fortitude, and integrity can do a great deal to make a woman beautiful."--Jacqueline Bisset

​"I became a loner. I became a mountain man. A lot of those things are very good qualities and they help you do your work, help you be singular and keep the artistic integrity of your work intact, but they don't make it very easy to live your life."--John Milius

​"The greatness of a man is not in how much wealth he acquires, but in his integrity and his ability to affect those around him positively."--Bob Marley

You flicker like a fluorescent lightAn intermittent strobe in a lonely nightAs I am standing by your sideTrying to breach this dark and deep divide​--Death Cab for Cutie (lyrics from the song Near/Far)

As I wait for my pain meds to kick in this morning, after a recent and rather invasive visit to the dentist, I ponder the appearance of art from both near and far. In fact, I spent some time thinking about the two words, near and far, and their various implications. So, I have peppered my blog today with a few quotes, some near, some far, that drew my attention.

NOTE: Be forewarned--most of these quotes are taken completely out of context, which I find to make them infinitely more interesting. But really, they can all be somewhat playfully applied to making and appreciating art...

"Because you don't live near a bakery doesn't mean you have to go without cheesecake."--Hedy Lamarr

I find I am fascinated by viewing paintings up close and from a distance. I think it is imperative, at least for my own work, that the artwork must hold my interest from both perspectives. I think of the work of Chuck Close and recall watching him paint large portraits up close in his wheelchair, then zoom back across the room to look at them from a distance. Back and forth. Near and far. Far and near. The image below is one of his portraits. It is accompanied by a detail shot.

Undoubtedly I have been influenced by his portraits. But honestly, I was already pixelating lots of images before I encountered his work. The thing that I admire most, almost as much as the incredible photo-realism he achieves, is that up close, his work exhibits beauty in its bits! Every little piece offers an intriguing composition and array of colors. This. This is important to me. I demand that my own work entice the viewer from a distance and that it does not fail to please the eye on closer inspection. Some pieces, of course, are more successful in that regard than others.

The first frame below is a close up of the second image which measured 3' x 4'. I have painted this face several times, experimenting with technique and materials. The third image is another version of the same face. I painted it using a 1/2" square of wood to stamp the pixels and a pencil eraser to dot the centers.

"A man must live like a great brilliant flame and burn as brightly as he can. In the end he burns out. But this is far better than a mean little flame."--Boris Yeltsin

The next portrait of Marilyn was created with 1" squares, 1" circles, 1/2" circles and squares, and a few butterflies. I have painted many Marilyns. The third one, Fragile Beauty, was composed entirely of butterflies, as is a recent portrait I collaged of Frida Kahlo. (Click on the images to see larger versions.)

As crazy as it might seem that I made these paintings out of paper pieces, that does not hold a candle to the two portraits I made using plastic parts. The first photo is a detail shot that shows one inch plastic squares (math manipulatives in their former life), topped with 1/2" plastic cubes, topped with clear plastic BINGO dots. I used this layered pixel process (and an incredible amount of super glue!) to create a portrait of Mona Lisa (approximately 2' x 3') and a larger one of Frida (2' x 4'). Strangely enough, they offer up very realistic, somewhat photographic images, when viewed from extreme distances.

"The price of inaction is far greater than the cost of making a mistake."--Meister Eckhart

I have also made several self portraits that involve bits and pieces of magazines. Here is a collage portrait, titled, "Use Your Words."

"It is our choices... that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities."--J. K. Rowling

I am now making a portrait of Gus and Call on pages from McMurtry's classic, Lonesome Dove. For some reason, I had the insane idea to make it look like tooled leather. I am actually enjoying the extreme attention to detail and have found it to be quite relaxing to work on it. It is definitely a good example of looking completely different up close and far away.

As I have experimented with micro-collages and pixelated images, I have discovered that what I expected to be difficult and tedious, is in fact quite simple when broken down into repetitive acts. And through trial and error, I have learned that it is best to start these projects in the center of the canvas and work my way out to the edges. The mosaic below is titled, "Homage to Dali's Gala," and was created with 1/2" squares cut from glossy photos of Dali's paintings. (In the interest of shameless self-promotion, I should mention that this piece is for sale. As is the Marilyn made of squares, circles and butterflies. And the smaller Dali face. And the one with the blue nails.)

"Stay focused and stay determined. Don't look to anyone else to be your determination - have self-determination. It will take you very far."--Justice Smith

I have also made a couple of Van Gogh portraits (shown with me below in my studio, and seen from a distance across the street) utilizing the same square process. And I recently made a small portrait of Dali, which I could not resist titling, "Hello, Dali!)

Since I had a few pages left from my Dali book, I made this little Pop Art tribute to him. It is titled, "It's Dali, Darling!" It measures 16" x 20". I have made several Pop Art pieces that combine acrylic paint and collage elements.

"Anyone who thinks my story is anywhere near over is sadly mistaken."--Donald Trump

During my morning reading, I serendipitously came across a concept called "the near/far problem." It has to do with hearing and communication. Here is a blurb from Wikipedia which explains it best:

"To place this problem in more common terms, imagine you are talking to someone 6 meters away. If the two of you are in a quiet, empty room then a conversation is quite easy to hold at normal voice levels. In a loud, crowded bar, it would be impossible to hear the same voice level, and the only solution (for that distance) is for both you and your friend to speak louder. Of course, this increases the overall noise level in the bar, and every other patron has to talk louder too (this is equivalent to power control runaway). Eventually, everyone has to shout to make themselves heard by a person standing right beside them, and it is impossible to communicate with anyone more than half a meter away."

I am now considering the implications of this problem, not with regard to hearing, but as it impacts my ability to communicate by making art. Am I indeed "talking louder" with my work, shouting even, in order to draw attention to my art, ultimately just contributing the the "noise" and making it difficult for everyone to communicate? Lots to think about as I paint leather my faux today...

I will close with this poem by William Butler Yeats, because it is beautiful, and because it considers both physical distance as well as the emotional abstraction of near and far.

Ephemera

'Your eyes that once were never weary of mineAre bowed in sorrow under pendulous lids,Because our love is waning.'And then she:'Although our love is waning, let us standBy the long border of the lake once more,Together in that hour of gentlenessWhen the poor tired child, Passion, falls asleep:How far away the stars seem, and how farIs our first kiss, and ah, how old my heart!'Pensive they paced along the faded leaves,While slowly he whose hand held hers replied:'Passion has often worn our wandering hearts.'The woods were round them, and the yellow leavesFell like faint meteors in the gloom, and onceA rabbit old and lame limped down the path;Autumn was over him: and now they stoodOn the lone border of the lake once more:Turning, he saw that she had thrust dead leavesGathered in silence, dewy as her eyes,In bosom and hair.'Ah, do not mourn,' he said,'That we are tired, for other loves await us;Hate on and love through unrepining hours.Before us lies eternity; our soulsAre love, and a continual farewell.

"The one thing that you have that nobody else has is you. Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision. So write and draw and build and play and dance and live as only you can."--Neil Gaiman

I am always fascinated to read an artist’s words about his or her art. Before and after I became an artist (I still feel like a fraud even calling myself artist!), I taught Creative Writing. This has influenced my art more than I can say. I like to write about my art. I have a problem with art that is not rich with embedded meaning. Why make it if it doesn’t say something? Lots of people can make a likeness or a pretty thing. But if it doesn’t explain, challenge, cajole, torment, or otherwise tweak the mind of your audience, have you really made art?

Not everything I make is art. Some of it is practice and experimentation. Even that, however, is informed with a tremendous amount of thought. What else am I going to do while I while away the time in my studio? I can’t help but consider how things are connected and what my art will provoke in the mind and emotions of the viewer. And of course, it is a small step then to thinking, “How can I control that provocation?”

I used to write a lot about my art. I realized over time that most people didn’t care to read my thoughts on this topic. Maybe they resented me telling them what to think about my creations. Maybe they just didn’t want to dive that deeply into what they feared was a void.

In some ways I think I imbue meaning into my art because I get easily bored. For example, I recently made a very large painting of two girls standing in front of the historical hotel where I live. My viewers would have been pleased if I had just made a decent likeness. They were, after all, two attractive girls and the hotel is a piece of local history. But I would have expired if I had merely created a realistic likeness of the scene. So, I tweaked the colors and superimposed the ten year old photo of the ladies over the photo I took that day of the hotel at an extreme angle so the building was even more monolithic. Then even as I transferred these thoughts to canvas, my mind was filled with what ifs! What if I put dots on this one since I hadn’t done that in a while? What if I cut the dots from vintage matchbook covers (which have always totally fascinated me due the art and history that they share in their diminutive way)? Matches equals hot. The girls are hot! Vintage equals old. The hotel is very old! And just look at the way the matrix of the dots breaks up the surface of the painting. BUT, I have done this before… What can I do to make it more interesting to myself, and in doing that, to my viewer?

What if I buy twelve hundred Disney Princess three-dimensional stickers like the ones I saw at the dollar store last week, peel the Disney Princesses off the back, and cover my matchbook dots with those convex, clear, plastic pieces? My two girls are princess material in a modern world! And just think imagine how the plastic pieces will break up the surface in a wholly new 3D way while protecting the old paper ephemera! The surface of the canvas even looks like bubble wrap!

The painting hangs in the pizzeria here in the hotel. But they hung it up high so no one would touch it or try to pull the 3D dots off of it. The problem with that defensive decision is that no one is able to determine that the dots came from vintage matchbook covers! And while the composition is pleasing and making the piece of art pleased me tremendously, it feels like a failure…

So, you know what this means? It means I am already thinking about making another painting that uses Disney Princess dots. And maybe one that contains matchbook covers. The creative tree will probably branch out into two different directions though, and use these elements in two different projects. But that’s a good thing? Right? Let me assure you--it is. It expands my mind, which expands my art. So, if I use the matchbook covers in their entirety, employing them as large pixels in a portrait (who?)--how large would that canvas have to be...?

A few years ago I started a series (I almost ALWAYS work in a series, work it to death, work it to life, work it and work it and work it until it leads to the next series.) in which I cut up classic novels and used the text, line by line, to create iconic characters. I call the series, “I Just Don’t Read Like I Used To.” It has become a commentary on the many ways Pop Culture has impacted our relationships with books, art and cinema.

Note: The text from the Marilyn Monroe painting is from James Joyce's Ulysses, because there is a famous photo of the blonde bombshell taken of her reading this book, sort of to prove that she was more than a blonde bombshell.​

This series has evolved in many directions. I am having a solo show at the Koth Gallery, which is located in the local public library, in August. This is important to me because it has caused me to reflect on the series and its development. It is also my first foray into the almost nonexistent artworld in my new home in the Pacific Northwest. (And the music in the background flairs: If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere… which immediately calls to mind the time I decided I would get one of my paintings into a show in New York. And then I did it. And how abysmally disappointing the whole experience was.) And see, just another example of how my mind folds back on itself. My internal dialogue is perpetually punctuated with parentheses!!! Come to think of it, the plastic Disney Princess dots were a form of parenthesis… And look at that! The ellipsis is a string of dots! And on it goes...

"Do you know what my favorite part of the game is? The opportunity to play."--Mike Singletary